New Here, Jumping in!

[Virginia82]

Hi! I'm Gen, Wife of Former-Marine (now Dept of Navy employee) TJ for 8 years, and mom of 3 cool kids: Heather (6), William (4) and Samantha (born Halloween '08). We recently moved from Tampa Bay, FL to Jacksonville, FL. When hubby was hired by the Navy, we were given 1 week to move up here. We're finally settling in, and I'm spending my days caring for my 2 AWESOME horses, playing with my kids, taking nature walks down our rural country road and into the forest with the kids, planning for school, and somewhere in there doing a wee bit 'o house cleaning. :tongue_smilie:

 

I am a homeschool graduate, so I have a wonderful support system with my family. My husband is as disgusted with the state of our public school system (and the LACK of education given to children now...in FL, they don't even teach spelling or cursive handwriting any longer). Since private school is not an option with 3 children, he became fully supportive of my desire to homeschool our children. Thus, I'm homeschooling with an outstanding support system in place. The only nay-sayers are my in-laws, who live 1500 miles away, thus not much of a problem.

 

Heather went through FL'd VPK program at 4 through our church. She received a great foundation and was a great way for me to boost my confidence in homeschooling. We started Kindergarten last year with her knowing her alphabet and numbers 1-100, as well as some basic addition/subtraction. We used Five-In-A-Row at my cousin's suggestion (my cousin also homeschools), and we really enjoyed it. I love unit studies, but wanted my children to have more depth to their education. I fully believe learning can, and should be, fun...especially at these young ages. Thus, I turned to Classical Education. I read through TWTM and decided this was "it" for me. So, here I sit...planning out our school year.

 

Since we are so far in the country now, there isn't a church close by with a VPK program, so I will be homeschooling my son for K-4 this year as well.

 

If anyone has any advice on how to help my son learn his letters, it'd be appreciated. Right now I'm just reading books with him, and each day/week we work on a new "letter". I'll read each page to my son (usually Thomas the Train books as he :001_wub: trains, especially Thomas) and then upon completion I'll challenge him to find all the letters that we're working on that are located on the page (If we're learning about "G" he'll be challenged to find all the g's on the page, etc). He's been picking it up that way. In fact, from time to time he'll come running up to me carrying the book he's looking at, and excitedly point out certain letters that he's found. I guess I make it into a scavenger hunt of sorts. I was planning on putting a letter chart up to help him as we work through the year, too.

 

Samantha is currently 20 months, and the extent of her 'education' is she's learning to sing the ABC song (and pretty good at it too for a 1 yr old LOL) and LOVES horses. She is getting into pretend play, and independent pretend play, almost always involving horses.

 

As I stated, I have 2 horses, on our property, and both of my girls LOVE horses, so a lot of what I've been teaching them is tied in with the horses. For instance, Heather has been learning about fractions by helping me feed the horses at each meal (one of my horses is an ex-race horse and his feed requirements are VERY high...eating as much as a draft horse or two). Stormy gets 1/2 a scoop at each meal, Boe gets 1 3/4 scoops of grain, plus 1 1/2 scoops of beet pulp...so she's been getting an education in fractions through life lessons.

 

Anyway, that's us in a nut shell! If you read my novel, then I thank you. I look forward to getting to know everyone!

[BeautifulLife]

Hi Gen! Welcome! I'm Jenn :) and pretty new here myself. We are in Jacksonville as well - DH is stationed at NAS JAX. Awesome that you have horses!!! We would LOVE to move further outside of town.

 

I can't offer any advice since this our first year homeschooling ourselves, after the last few years in a Christian school here. Just wanted to say hello! :)

[Virginia82]

Oh wow! NAS JAX is where my hubby works. :-) Where in Jax do you live? We're in westside. I <3 the country, so when we had to move up here hubby and I started looking for a place to rent where we could bring the horse instead of boarding. God blessed us richly. :001_smile: It's literally a dream come true, for me.

 

I'm also a flute and piano teacher, and trying to get my house organized so that I can start advertising for students. A little something to try and help contribute to the finances (or at least pay for the horses w/o dipping into the family budget LOL). Thus, Heather (6) is learning piano as her musical aspect of her education.

[BeautifulLife]

We live in Intracoastal West, a couple miles away from Atlantic Beach. DH was stationed at NS Mayport when he was on sea duty... so this used to be a convenient place to live! Not so much anymore. We are debating selling here and renting down in Orange Park/Fleming Island for the remainder of DH's tour in Jax.

 

How interesting that you are a piano teacher! I plan on starting my 7 yr old DD in piano (my choice) or violin (her choice) this school year. DS is really wanting to learn guitar.

 

Are you a member of a homeschool group here?

[Garga]

Hi new person! You sound like you're doing just fine with the teaching of the letters.

 

It's such a fun, difficult, rewarding, beautiful experience, this thing we call homeschooling. Glad to welcome you to the journey.

[BMW]

Hi and welcome!

 

One activity I did with one of my boys when they were that age... I bought a very inexpensive scrapbook and abc stickers and as we would learn the letter of the week, he would do a two page layout... put a few of the abc stickers for that letter on and we'd find those letters in coloring books and cut them out and glue stick them on the page... find the letters in magazines, etc. and also find pictures of things that start with that letter/sound. He loved the abc book that he made!

 

Enjoy these beautiful days with young ones... they slip by faster than you realize. Mine are now almost 11 and up and I'd love to go back and spend a day with them as little kiddos once more.

 

Bee

[Virginia82]

We live in Intracoastal West, a couple miles away from Atlantic Beach. DH was stationed at NS Mayport when he was on sea duty... so this used to be a convenient place to live! Not so much anymore. We are debating selling here and renting down in Orange Park/Fleming Island for the remainder of DH's tour in Jax.

 

How interesting that you are a piano teacher! I plan on starting my 7 yr old DD in piano (my choice) or violin (her choice) this school year. DS is really wanting to learn guitar.

 

Are you a member of a homeschool group here?

 

No, not yet. I've been here less than 2 months, and it seems like most of the HS groups locally are in the "off" season right now. LOL I am just waiting for them to start getting active again and then I'll jump in.

 

We live off Normandy, just a few miles from the Navy housing out here, next to Cecil Field, and it takes hubby less than 30 mi. to get to/from work every day. We LOVE living out here. My kids are always discovering some new critter. Today, it was a walking stick...on our front door.

 

Well, speaking as a piano teacher, an avid musician, and the daughter of a piano teacher, my advice would be to have her take piano lessons. Piano is NOT my primary instrument, but it is the first that I learned. My primary instruments are flute and bassoon. My piano foundation taught me how to use both halves of my mind independantly and simultaniously, gave me an outstanding foundation in music theory, and enbaled me to easily pick up multiple instruments down the road. I started playing flute in 4th grade, and in 11th grade I learned bassoon...on a dare. 3 months later I was playing in on of the top youth symphonies in my area, and in a year was playing in THE top youth symphony along side the FL Orchestra. Could I have learned bassoon without my piano foundation? Yes...but as it's a bass cleff instrument and would have required me to learn a whole new cleff in addition to learning the nuances of the new instrument. Instead, I just had to focus on learning the nuances of the new instrument.

 

If your daughter is wanting to learn violin, I'd encourage her to take a couple of years of piano first, because whose to say that she won't want to learn cello later on down the road...which would also require learning to read bass cleff? (I later went on to major in music performance on both of my instruments...but if asked in 4th grade would have NEVER said I would want to learn bassoon).

[Virginia82]

Thank you all for the warm welcome, input, and advice. :) I appreciate it, and look forward to getting to know everyone.

[BeautifulLife]

my advice would be to have her take piano lessons. Piano is NOT my primary instrument, but it is the first that I learned. My primary instruments are flute and bassoon. My piano foundation taught me how to use both halves of my mind independantly and simultaniously, gave me an outstanding foundation in music theory, and enabled me to easily pick up multiple instruments down the road. I started playing flute in 4th grade, and in 11th grade I learned bassoon...on a dare. 3 months later I was playing in on of the top youth symphonies in my area, and in a year was playing in THE top youth symphony along side the FL Orchestra. Could I have learned bassoon without my piano foundation? Yes...but as it's a bass cleff instrument and would have required me to learn a whole new cleff in addition to learning the nuances of the new instrument. Instead, I just had to focus on learning the nuances of the new instrument.

 

If your daughter is wanting to learn violin, I'd encourage her to take a couple of years of piano first, because whose to say that she won't want to learn cello later on down the road...which would also require learning to read bass cleff? (I later went on to major in music performance on both of my instruments...but if asked in 4th grade would have NEVER said I would want to learn bassoon).

 

:iagree:with you completely! This is EXACTLY why I would prefer her to take piano for a few years first...I believe it's a great foundation. My thought was that if she started lessons in the instrument SHE was excited about, then she would put more effort into it. But I think in the end it would be better if I encouraged her to take piano now - with the promise that she could switch in a few years after she's mastered the basics.

 

As far as homeschool groups... we recently joined Classical Conversations and I am really looking forward to it starting in a couple weeks!

 

I've only been over near Cecil Field once, for a function with my son's football team. I don't know that area very well.

[Lisa in Jax]

Welcome, Gen.

 

Have you heard about the Cottage homeschool in Orange Park, or the "ROCK" Solid book store? Both will have resources for someone on the West side.

 

HIH,

 

Lisa (in Mandarin)